


portrait of a shadow sitting by the window

by darksideofmyroom



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, Kinda, Mental Instability, Pre-Season/Series 01, Sibling Love, Unreliable Narrator, i guess?, yeah I have mommy issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24070900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darksideofmyroom/pseuds/darksideofmyroom
Summary: Whenever Tommy thinks of his mother, she’s sitting by the window.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	portrait of a shadow sitting by the window

**Author's Note:**

> hey there everyone! I always wanted to write something for this series and finally the inspiration came to me, so yeah, here we are.  
> I might not have gotten them all in character, but I hope you enjoy this anyway

Whenever Tommy thinks of his mother, she’s sitting by the window.

It’s one single image, the result of countless others that are so very similar, but never quite the same.

They overlap, in Tommy’s mind, to create this really clear mixture of shadows, whispers and scents.

He always sees her through the smoke, though.

When she sits by the window she’s holding a cigarette between her fingers, but she never brings it to her lips, never inhales.

It disintegrates under her uncaring, far-away eyes.

The ashes pile up on the floor almost rhythmically, Tommy swears he can hear them make a noise.

The air shifts and he can see Ada, three years old, grey on her hands and face.

She’s dirty, and she’s smiling.

Tommy’s the only one looking at her.

Ada soon stops calling for her ma when she’s scared, or sad. She learns she never comes, never hears.

When their mother sits by the window, Ada calls her  _ the lady  _ and she tries not to see her, cause she knows she’s not there.

Always been quite bright, their Ada. 

Hopeful, but never naive. She learns some things, some people, are a lost cause. She learns through experience, she learns through hoping, and being let down.

Tommy knows how much it must hurt when she tries to shield herself, when she bites her lip and looks away. He really wants her to know, he does see her.

He never tells her, though.

Sometimes, their mother sits by the window for days.

Tommy never sees her move, not even in the memory he keeps of her.

Arthur brings her bread on a plate, and every time, every single time he does so he smiles as he approaches her.

Tommy runs a hand through his face. He sighs.

His head is throbbing and his heart is tired, it’s so slow and lazy and it really wants to rest.

He’s tired, so weary that he’ll never stop moving, he’ll never allow himself to stop because he knows that otherwise he’ll never be able to start again, and he’ll end up sitting by the window, holding a cigarette he won’t smoke.

Arthur sits down on the floor, criss crossed.

He always makes sure he’s not on the side of the ashes.

When she brings her eyes to rest on him she doesn’t see her son, she never touches the bread.

Yet Arthur waits, and he rarely speaks, because he knows that’ll annoy her, and she’ll hiss at him to go away.

He waits, but Tommy can see what he’s really doing.

Arthur begs.

He says, with no words, he pleads:  _ Please, just a tad of love, just a second of touch, just a drop of caring. _

He doesn’t get any.

Tommy shakes his head.

His brother feels too much to think, and right now he's showing his loyalty to a shadow, he’s holding onto an empty spot. Still he tries.

He’s stubborn and infuriatingly stupid, and Tommy should tell him he’s self-sabotaging, he should tell him he’s bringing himself down by being so attached to emotion and so out of touch with thought.

Instead, Tommy just lays a hand on his shoulder.

_ Some of us are still real. _

A reminder that he can only hope comes across.

She doesn’t always sit by the window.

Sometimes she braids Ada’s hair and squeezes John’s cheeks and even smiles at Arthur.

She’s so sweet and caring and so incredibly cruel.

She gives and gives and suddenly takes away, yanks love right out of their hands, and she falls so deep into her own head that she sees nothing but what isn’t there. And those invisible voices are too loud to allow any other noise to spread.

They’re eating her up, she’s being devoured by them.

It’s better when she’s behind closed doors, then.

They can pretend.

Arthur still lingers, his hand raised, ready to knock. In the end he makes the much better choice to leave through the front door. He goes to the pub, goes to meet some friends. A distraction.

Ada and John pick up pebbles off the sidewalk and make them bounce on the steps of the staircase.

Tommy watches them play and reminds them to be quiet, but Ada can’t really hold back her giggles when John makes those funny faces as he concentrates, and John can’t help but shriek in excitement when his little stone bounces all the way down to the floor.

A loud kid, John is. He really has no other way to make his presence known, and god knows he doesn’t get a good enough amount of attention.

Tommy gets frustrated with him, sometimes. Then he blames himself for doing so, because John is just a kid and his parents are barely real in his eyes, and he must feel so unloved.

Still, his laughter makes their mother’s headaches grow, and they can’t have that, eh?

She needs to rest, he explains. John frowns, and he tries but his voice raises on its own, even though he doesn’t want it to.

But then it gets too quiet, so quiet it’s oppressing, and John gets uneasy and lonely and he screams.

One time he screams right in her face, and he gets slapped right across his. Not once, but twice, to make sure he won’t cry.

She doesn’t say anything after, just closes her eyes and sighs, like she’s a thousand years old and exhausted of this world.

John does cry though, later, right into his pillow, as Tommy tucks him in. He keeps it quiet.

Ada watches from her mattress, biting her nails, so Tommy tells them a story, does the voices that John likes.

When he stands up to leave, thinking them both asleep, he hears Ada whisper, her eyes still closed: “I thought only dad hit.”

Tommy doesn’t say a thing, but he sits back down.

When he thinks of his mother, Tommy sees her sitting by the window, through the fog of the cigarette she doesn’t smoke, her eyes just like his, and empty.

Some nights, in her other hand she’s holding a gun. She holds it like it doesn’t matter, like she doesn’t care that they both know what it means.

“Thomas” she says, and she always pronounces his name like it’s sweet, like it’s dear.

It makes his stomach twist, his insides turn.

He comes close, like she wants him to be.

_ We’re the same, you and me. My son, don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t you know what I’ll do if you leave?  _

He kneels on the same side Arthur sits. The side of the gun, now.

He takes her heavy hand in his, holds it there.

It burns, but he holds on.

“You could always understand, Thomas. You’re like me” she’s said this before, the room upside down, blood on her dress “They’re calling, but you can come with me. I want you to come, Thomas.”

She’s talking about the gun, and the voices of the dead. She thinks she’s talking about love.

Tommy remembers he snatched the gun from her hand. She cried, she screamed, she said things he would always remember.

_ Do it! Do it! Make it stop! _

Now, Tommy looks into her eyes. 

She’s gone, always has been, and he’s on his way, he’s getting there.

_ We’re the same, you and me. _

There is a void and there is smoke. 

Tommy kneels on the floor, next to his mother.

By the window.

He knows, he sees it clearer than ever now.

Love can be a curse and sometimes, death is a kindness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you feel like leaving your thoughts in the comments I would appreciate that immensely, hope you’re having a good day!
> 
> (oh and English isn’t my first language so if there’s any mistakes let me know!)


End file.
